Phil Hayward – Lodginghttp://lodgingmagazine.com
Official Publication of the AH&LAFri, 09 Dec 2016 20:22:37 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.1The Education of an AAHOA Leaderhttp://lodgingmagazine.com/the-education-of-an-aahoa-leader/
http://lodgingmagazine.com/the-education-of-an-aahoa-leader/#respondWed, 09 Mar 2016 14:17:29 +0000http://lodgingmagazine.com/?p=23685Like many among the second generation of Indian-American hoteliers, Bharat (Bruce) Patel can say he was born into the business. The Dallas-based owner and developer, along with his younger brother and sister, was raised in the small apartment of a motel owned by his father, A.V. Patel, providing them with a thorough grounding in every aspect of lodging. “It was really enriching for me from an educational perspective,” Patel says, “watching my father, especially, and ...

]]>Like many among the second generation of Indian-American hoteliers, Bharat (Bruce) Patel can say he was born into the business. The Dallas-based owner and developer, along with his younger brother and sister, was raised in the small apartment of a motel owned by his father, A.V. Patel, providing them with a thorough grounding in every aspect of lodging. “It was really enriching for me from an educational perspective,” Patel says, “watching my father, especially, and all the hard work and discipline in his system. It helped me have a greater appreciation of life in general, especially to be able to absorb those values on a day-to-day basis.” This strong family upbringing set Patel on the right path to achieve hospitality career success. Next month, the 41-year-old hotelier will hit a career milestone when he assumes the chairmanship of the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA).

Patel says his father impressed upon him and his siblings that education came first. “He came to this country as one of seven siblings and accidentally pursued the American Dream—get an education, work hard, and create a better life for your family,” he says. “Without an education, we were told, you can’t really grow in every aspect of life.”

Patel graduated near the top of his class at the University of Houston’s hotel school, then from the University of Texas/Dallas where he received his MBA. “I took my studies very seriously, but along the way I also loved athletics—basketball was my number-one love,” he says. “I wasn’t part of a formal athletic program, but basketball has really been an important part of my life, though more as a spectator these days.”

Even as he was finishing his college education, Patel continued working in the family business, with an eye toward learning every department inside and out, growing RevPAR in their limited-service properties, and getting into the development arena. Over the next few years he mastered operations, grew RevPAR (as much as 12 percent in one year), and got involved in developing hotel projects throughout Texas.

Today Patel, his father, and brother, Danny, head up Dallas-based Dabu Hotels, which owns 12 properties spread across five major franchise brands. Patel has also been involved in the development of another dozen hotels, most flagged with major brands in the Dallas, Austin, and Houston markets. “Location and brand fitness really matter,” he says. “My brother and I have passed on development opportunities because of inferior location sites or inappropriate brand selection.”

Although the Patel family has more lodging projects planned, they aren’t rushing the matter, particularly due to the uncertainty surrounding the U.S. economy. Patel considers the present-day economic cycle to be at its peak, with possibly another year to go in its current situation. “Maybe even longer from a hotel perspective, depending on what happens with the ever-concerning global economy,” Patel says.

As he was learning the business, Patel was assimilated into another dimension of the Indian-American hotel experience: Through his father’s participation in the formation of AAHOA, he steadily got more involved in the organization’s activities, beginning in the mid-1990s. “My father was a board member and subsequent officer of AAHOA, and so naturally our family was volunteering a lot at that time,” he says. “When I first got involved, AAHOA was looking to get recognized by the hotel industry,” Patel continues. “Today, AAHOA is a major part of the industry. We owe that to a lot of past chairmen, past board directors, and volunteers and leaders throughout AAHOA’s history.”

While AAHOA may be a fully matured trade organization with membership at an all-time high (15,000), there’s still room to grow, Patel says. The organization could double its membership over the next 10 years, he explains, noting the potential in second-generation hoteliers, as well as hotel professionals from the overall industry. “We’re instrumental in creating smarter, more aware hotel owners and developers through our education programs,” Patel says.

In looking toward the year ahead, Patel takes confidence from the strategic continuity that will be handed over to him by 2015 Chairman Jay R. (Jimmy) Patel. “As incoming chair this year, alongside my fellow officers and my board of directors, our challenge will be to accelerate our reach,” he says. “To assist in shaping the hotel environment to make it friendlier to develop and operate hotels, we’ve got great partners, like the AH&LA and others, to create a unified industry.

“And when you look at the challenges in general, they range from more of an industry perspective than anything,” he continues. “While the pundits are showing a pretty good picture of RevPAR, rate, and occupancy for 2016, there’s a shaky global economy, which is a cause for concern that mandates awareness for our owners. There are also matters of the franchisor/franchisee balance, the regulatory environment, legislative issues that face our members, as well as the industry in general. And we’ve got a gridlocked political system, which does not help our economy in general, and it certainly does not assist in a small-business economy where our owners lie.”

Come April, Patel will be ready to take on the chairman’s mantle. He’s been preparing for it his entire life.

]]>http://lodgingmagazine.com/the-education-of-an-aahoa-leader/feed/0AH&LA Chair Jim Abrahamson Looks to Make a Lasting Impacthttp://lodgingmagazine.com/ahla-chair-jim-abrahamson-looks-to-make-a-lasting-impact/
http://lodgingmagazine.com/ahla-chair-jim-abrahamson-looks-to-make-a-lasting-impact/#respondMon, 19 Jan 2015 16:02:34 +0000http://lodgingmagazine.com/?p=16298If there’s a hat in the lodging industry, Jim Abrahamson has probably worn it. He’s filled hourly positions and general manager roles at individual properties and provided executive leadership in operations, finance and development, and franchising across portfolios at several major brands. While Abrahamson’s breadth of experience helps him make sense of the many issues impacting the industry around the world, it also connects him to the thousands of people working across so many facets ...

He’s filled hourly positions and general manager roles at individual properties and provided executive leadership in operations, finance and development, and franchising across portfolios at several major brands. While Abrahamson’s breadth of experience helps him make sense of the many issues impacting the industry around the world, it also connects him to the thousands of people working across so many facets of lodging, from frontline employees to investors and developers. It also helps that he’s the CEO of the industry’s largest third-party management company, which oversees a portfolio of 450 hotels, 45 brands, and 30,000 employees around the world. His responsibilities at Virginia-based Interstate Hotels & Resorts put him at the pinnacle of leadership in the lodging industry. But like many in the hotel industry, he grew from much humbler beginnings.

“I started as a desk clerk, but I also had to work my way through college,” Abrahamson says. “It was not only a great training ground, it helped me pay my rent and tuition.” By the time he was 26 years old, Abrahamson had worked in the kitchens of restaurants, hospitals, and, of course, a hotel. At the Registry Hotel in Bloomington, Minn., he got valuable cross-training in all its departments, not just operations but also management and finance.

Abrahamson’s route to the top mirrors the emerging model of 21st-century chief executives. Increasingly, the people moving into CEO roles have experience across a wide range of disciplines. “They spend time in operations, finance, then they go into marketing, and they spend time in strategy,” says Robert Rosen, Ph.D., psychologist, and CEO of Healthy Companies International. Over the past 25 years, Rosen’s consulting firm has worked with more than 500 CEOs in 50-some countries, many of them in the lodging industry. He’s used this experience to write six books on leadership, including his most recent, Grounded: How Leaders Stay Rooted in an Uncertain World.

Rosen has observed across all industries that the most successful CEOs today share a common core set of traits and career paths that are markedly different from those of CEOs a generation ago. “In the traditional line of progression, most CEOs came from finance or marketing,” Rosen says. “But the path to the CEO’s office has really broadened in the last several years.”

Today, you have CEOs who come from operations jobs, and lawyers from the outside coming into the general counsel office, as well as people from finance and sales and marketing, heads of strategy, and, increasingly, heads of human resources. “When they get to the top, they look across geographies and across lines of business,” he says. “They’ve got an enterprise mind-set—they understand the pieces for all the stakeholders.” The way Rosen sees it, when people work their way to the top of their chosen field, cross-training the entire way, there’s no need for them to worry about having the kind of passion that mobilizes the hearts and minds of those around them. It’s been there all along.

This multi-discipline trajectory has served Abrahamson well throughout his career. He cites his 12 years with Hilton as a good example of accumulative experience. “I worked my way through the operational side but finished as senior vice president of franchising,” he says. This experience helped Abrahamson later when he headed up development in the Americas for Hyatt at a time when the company was creating a select-service division. And he drew on his deep understanding of operations, franchising, and development as he transitioned to president of the Americas for InterContinental Hotels Group, when IHG was re-launching the Holiday Inn brand and expanding its reach. It was his last stop before coming to Interstate. “Being in the industry 35 years allows me to now lead the largest independent hotel company in the world at a time when we’ve more than doubled in size from 200 hotels to 450 hotels with 30,000 associates.”

Despite Abrahamson’s fast track up the corporate ladder, he would never refer to his achievements in terms of targeted advancement. Instead he describes his career as a linear progression of accumulated experience. “You’re always in a learning mode, and you’re always in a growth mode.” Dieter Huckestein remembers working with Abrahamson when he joined Hilton’s corporate office. Huckestein, who would go on to serve as president of Hilton Global Alliance and then as chairman and CEO of Conrad Hotels, recalls Abrahamson’s attention to detail and his endless energy. “He was the real deal,” says Huckestein, who served as AH&LA board chair in 2004. “With Jim, you get an authenticity that is visible, out on the table. He has clear vision and a keen focus on doing the job with integrity.”

Abrahamson’s new role as AH&LA chair will seriously test the many skills and relationships he has acquired over his three and a half decades in the business. In leading the organization representing the interests of the entire $163 billion lodging industry, he will work on a stage far larger than the individual companies he has led. Fortunately, he sees a clear path forward through the unique and diverse challenges ahead.

Expanding the Stage
As AH&LA chair for the next two years, Abrahamson’s looking to find new ways to strengthen and protect the lodging industry. Being based near Washington, D.C., allows him to be a difference maker, addressing issues that help create a rising tide that benefits all hotel companies. “My job as CEO of Interstate is to improve our revenues, provide returns to owners, manage expenses, and have the world’s best management company,” he says. “That’s my goal, and involvement in AH&LA allows me to do that, meaning I can have a direct impact on the challenges facing us.”

He has a history of this kind of industry involvement, most recently as 2014 National Chairman of the U.S. Travel Association and as a member of the AH&LA Governmental Affairs Committee and of the advisory board of the Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality Entrepreneurship before that. For the AH&LA, he entered the executive volunteer ranks in 2013 as secretary, then treasurer, and now chair for 2015 and 2016. “This is why you get involved,” he says. “Creating a strong association means getting everyone’s engagement as well as their commitment to building a strong PAC.” The side benefit of enlisting people in the industry to think of these issues as part of their day jobs is that it broadens their focus to a bigger cause.

This approach goes to the heart of Rosen’s most significant observation of successful leaders. “In interviewing people from Toyota to Pepsico to Ford, the best CEOs drive their companies with their values and higher purposes for the company,” Rosen says, adding that the one area that predicts people’s leadership performance better than any other is a sense of belonging to something bigger than they are. “Those leaders who exhibit this broader connection are rated by bosses, peers, and subordinates as being better leaders.”

Interstate President and COO Ted Knighton points to his boss’s ability to connect to something larger as what won him over when Abrahamson joined the company in 2011. “Jim is a consensus builder and strategic thinker,” Knighton says. “Above all, he strongly believes in building relationships—whether with our own colleagues, our owners, the brands, or the industry leaders we work with.”

In working with AH&LA over the next two years to confront a raft of new and ongoing issues, Abrahamson will marshal his wealth of strong industry relationships and strategic vision to move forward an ambitious to-do list. “Number one on our list for 2015 is advancing the causes of our industry in Congress and at the White House,” he says. “We want to ensure the industry is well represented and well known as being an economic benefactor—that the U.S. economy benefits from this industry, that it’s all about job creation and career development that’s vitally important to everyone.”

Number two on Abrahamson’s list is dealing with rising threats to the hotel industry: drastic minimum wage hikes, changes to the industry’s traditional franchise model by the National Labor Relations Board, fast-moving developments in distribution and technology, and the shared-economy companies like Airbnb, which many hoteliers see as skirting the law and using deceptive practices.

Then, there are ongoing issues such as terrorism risk insurance, the health care rollout, immigration reform, and online travel companies, among others. With those, Abrahamson says, we play offense. “We’re looking to increase our occupancies, and we want to ensure through our advocacy efforts that these revenue lines can benefit—whether from ensuring passage of TRIA to making sure we do as much as possible to strength travel and tourism promotion. So, 2015 will be a matter of ensuring we’ve got a consistent message, play offense, and play defense.”

Abrahamson will be working closely with Katherine Lugar, who took over for long-time AH&LA President and CEO Joe McInerney following his retirement just over a year ago. Lugar came to the association after highly regarded government affairs roles with Travelers Insurance and Retail Industry Leaders Association. She sees a common thread running through AH&LA’s long line of chairs: strong relationships throughout the industry combined with broad leadership abilities and a strong capacity for strategic guidance.

“Jim possesses those qualities,” Lugar says. “Not to mention his own personal story, rising from a front desk clerk to CEO. There is no question that Jim will be instrumental in taking us to the next level.” Lugar acknowledges the hard work that went into the association’s pivotal year in 2014. “But we’re not letting up,” she says. “With Jim’s leadership, we hope to continue that growth and further expand engagement.”

Taking the Baton
“We often talk about our industry as one that helps people achieve the American Dream, and that is so true,” Abrahamson says. “I am living my American Dream.” Looking back to that pivotal moment when he landed his first hotel job at 26, Abrahamson says he had no idea of how far he would go. “I worked hard and had the good fortune to move around and up.”

Providing a wide array of avenues for career advancement is something that distinguishes lodging from other industries, particularly for those who enter at the line level. “It’s clear that the industry is a launching pad for everyone,” he says. “I know many executives in this industry who started out at the line level.” What’s impressive is how much their skill sets and leadership aptitudes anticipated years in advance the big tent approach to industry advocacy that so many hotel companies have adopted.

In taking over the reins from 2014 AH&LA Chair John Fitzpatrick of the Fitzpatrick Hotel Group, Abrahamson will work with a fully revamped membership structure and executive leadership. Years of research and planning went into creating a wider, more industry-representative model. Membership constituencies now include brands, owners, management companies, independent hotels, partner state associations, and allied vendors and suppliers. “We chose advocacy to be the signature component of what we stand for,” Abrahamson says. “We sharpened our focus, and we’ve created a three-year strategic plan that focuses on the elements of our organization and the needs of our members.”

Thanks to Fitzpatrick, AH&LA can charge into 2015 unencumbered by organizational restructuring and leadership transition. Abrahamson knows the transition couldn’t have been done without his predecessor’s work. “John’s advice to me is to just run with it. Take it forward from here. He said that we have a great team and terrific voluntary leadership, the new model is in place, and the wind is at our backs. So take it and run with it.”

]]>http://lodgingmagazine.com/ahla-chair-jim-abrahamson-looks-to-make-a-lasting-impact/feed/0Lodging Execs Share Their Industry Roots, How They Got Aheadhttp://lodgingmagazine.com/lodging-execs-share-their-industry-roots-and-how-they-got-ahead/
http://lodgingmagazine.com/lodging-execs-share-their-industry-roots-and-how-they-got-ahead/#respondMon, 17 Nov 2014 15:59:10 +0000http://lodgingmagazine.com/?p=15341Hospitality is still an industry where the dishwasher can make it to the top—literally. In 2008, Lodging queried dozens of the industry’s top CEOs, asking them one question: What was your first job? Close to half cited dishwashing in restaurants and hotels. It’s now 2014, and the industry is immensely more complex and global than ever. Yet, the route to the top echelons of the industry remain open to those with the right mind-set and ...

]]>Hospitality is still an industry where the dishwasher can make it to the top—literally. In 2008, Lodging queried dozens of the industry’s top CEOs, asking them one question: What was your first job? Close to half cited dishwashing in restaurants and hotels. It’s now 2014, and the industry is immensely more complex and global than ever. Yet, the route to the top echelons of the industry remain open to those with the right mind-set and work ethic.

For this article, Lodging interviewed three hotel executives at the top of their game to look back over their careers and share their stories about the way up. Each represents a different area of the industry: Art Adler is managing director/CEO Americas for Jones Lang LaSalle’s Hotels and Hospitality Group (real estate transactions, advisory services, investment banking, and asset management), Walter Isenberg is CEO of Denver-based Sage Hospitality (ownership and management), and Tina Edmundson is global officer/SVP luxury and lifestyle brands for Marriott International. All three began humbly (two were dishwashers), and all quickly developed a vision of where they wanted to go and evolved the skill set to get there.

They would tell you they have the best jobs in the world and would not trade them for anything. Their message to anyone at any level in the industry, but particularly newcomers, is that passion, hard work, and flexibility are the keys to getting ahead.

AN APTITUDE FOR ACCOUNTING
Adler grew up in Paramus, N.J., the son of a German immigrant who would become an architect. “A normal kid with a public school education” is how Adler describes his youth. “Not a particularly notable school career. I really didn’t know what I wanted to do, like most high school kids.

“Because we were a very middle-class family, I always had to work, whether it was mowing lawns or whatever,” he continues. “My first job in the hospitality industry was washing dishes at a Howard Johnson. I was 14 or 15, and it was a minimum wage job.”

His next job, while still in high school, was a night houseman at a Holiday Inn in Paramus. “I would hang out with the front desk clerks and talk with them,” Adler says. “I learned how to use the front office equipment—a Holidex machine, the NCR 4200 electronic cash register, and the switchboard. And so I became a front desk clerk.”

Still not knowing what he wanted to do, Adler enrolled at a small state school and continued to work in hotels. Fate turned when the young woman working the desk for her summer job told Adler about Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, which she attended. He applied and was accepted.

“Looking back, my grades were OK and my SAT scores fair at best,” he says, “but I was a really good candidate. All my jobs growing up were in hospitality—whether it was washing dishes, bussing tables, cleaning rooms, or working the front desk. I already had an interest and passion in hospitality, and they saw that.”

Did Adler know then that he was on his way to heading up a major hotel real estate transactions firm doing deals annually totaling more than $10 billion?

“Of course not,” he answers. “I didn’t even know what hotel real estate was. Even when you’re at Cornell, most people think they are going to be in hotel management.”

Adler spent his summers working at Catskill resorts, learning enough to know he didn’t want to be in food and beverage and to recognize his aptitude for accounting.

“When I got out of school, I really wanted to work in consulting, because I had an aptitude for the numbers side of the business,” he says.

However, he didn’t land a consulting job at first and, instead, went to work in the front office of the 2,100-room New York Hilton as a management trainee, working his way up through the rooms side of the business. A key move came when he became an assistant operations analyst at the Hilton. “It was like being an internal consultant. You worked directly for the general manager, and you analyzed the profit and loss statements and various departments, focusing on payroll, overtime, big investment items, like china, glasses, and special projects.”

At age 23, Adler took over as head operations analyst, a position that required him approximately once a month to serve as weekend manager of the hotel. However, to proceed further in the hotel’s management hierarchy required a return to pure operations, something Adler didn’t want.

Instead, he applied again to Laventhol & Horwath, the accounting firm to which he originally applied directly out of college. “They literally hired me on the spot. That was 1980.

“That backed me out of operations to more the real estate side,” he says. “That’s where I learned that side of the business. At that time, you really didn’t learn that at Cornell.”

The 1980s and ’90s saw Adler working for Laventhol & Horwath, Sonnenblick Goldman, Coopers & Lybrand, and, in 2000, Jones Lang LaSalle. He was 43 at the time, and JLL’s hotel real estate head, Peter Barge, was working on creating a global hotel real estate transaction firm with divisions in Europe, the Americas, Australia, and Asia. Adler took the job as head of the Americas for the London-based company where he has been ever since.

“I felt I could go in and make a difference coming into such a terrific platform, especially since I was used to a larger platform, both at Laventhol & Horwath and Coopers & Lybrand,” he says. “I turned out to be correct—it was and is a leading hotel transaction platform and continues to be. Today, we are about 110 people in the Americas and about 275 globally.”

]]>http://lodgingmagazine.com/lodging-execs-share-their-industry-roots-and-how-they-got-ahead/feed/0A Look Inside Blackstone’s Plan to Own Sustainabilityhttp://lodgingmagazine.com/a-look-inside-blackstones-plan-to-own-sustainability/
http://lodgingmagazine.com/a-look-inside-blackstones-plan-to-own-sustainability/#respondTue, 15 Jul 2014 14:09:16 +0000http://lodgingmagazine.com/?p=12659In 2012, Jean Garris Hand visited the iconic Boca Raton Resort & Club in South Florida to assess and make recommendations to its energy and water usage. The 1926 resort was a solid property, yet it had the abundance of opportunity for improvement that Blackstone, its owner for the last 10 years, requires in its real estate investments. She immediately brought to bear on the 326-acre enterprise an array of cost-saving initiatives. In fact, it’s ...

]]>In 2012, Jean Garris Hand visited the iconic Boca Raton Resort & Club in South Florida to assess and make recommendations to its energy and water usage. The 1926 resort was a solid property, yet it had the abundance of opportunity for improvement that Blackstone, its owner for the last 10 years, requires in its real estate investments. She immediately brought to bear on the 326-acre enterprise an array of cost-saving initiatives.

In fact, it’s a rare hotel that Hand and her boss Don Anderson visit that doesn’t yield some nugget of energy and water savings. Errant thermostats, on light switches, and incorrect toilet flappers are just some of the low-hanging fruit they encounter in their mandate to trim from the expense column of Blackstone’s real estate portfolio.

In Boca Raton, Hand and Anderson found its staff central to implementing a heightened sustainability program. Virtually everyone involved in the operation of the five-star, five-diamond resort feels driven to go above and beyond the call of everyday duty to ensure the most memorable guest stays possible. Yet, behind their efforts was an overlooked core business opportunity common to grand resorts like Boca Raton: low-cost, no-cost measures to save energy and water usage. “In the course of day-to-day operations, little did they know that they as a team could be making a huge difference on the bottom line,” Hand recalls. “It took a top-down push across all departments.”

Simply by walking the premises, Hand noted numerous unoccupied meeting and banquet rooms fully air conditioned and illuminated around the clock. She found the same after hours in spas and fitness centers. Housekeepers routinely set thermostats on maximum cool while working in guestrooms, exiting them still being cooled regardless of occupancy status. Engineering staff typically allowed intake of too much fresh, outdoor air, which resulted in overworked chillers and condensation. In the kitchens, which account for 20 percent of a typical resort’s energy usage, she observed inadequate shutdown and start-up functions during third-shift periods.

The resort’s staff soon learned that tackling these shortcomings made their resort much more appealing to meetings and events customers with green requirements.

Using a playbook of systematic recommendations, Hand was able to achieve in the first month of its implementation a reduction of 15 percent in energy and water usage for an annual savings of nearly $500,000. This number got the attention of Blackstone’s senior management and set in motion the creation of a full-blown sustainability team uniting all of the firm’s hotel companies. And in this team’s first 12 months of operation, Blackstone realized savings in the millions of dollars spread across lodging assets approaching a million rooms.

But Blackstone’s sustainability machine didn’t materialize overnight. Anderson started laying the groundwork when he began consulting for Blackstone in 2008. At that time, the private equity firm already had the bulk of its hotel real estate investments in place and was engaging only in limited new investments in the aftermath of the economic downturn. Blackstone brought him in to assess the sustainability of its assets and then hired him full time in 2011 to oversee sustainability initiatives across all its private equity holdings—a tall order when your hotel holdings include Hilton Worldwide, La Quinta Inns & Suites, Extended Stay America, Motel 6, LXR/Luxury Hotels & Resorts, and a portfolio of select-service hotels. For a sense of the economic impact of the lodging portfolio, consider that Hilton was ranked the 38th largest private company in the United States at the time Blackstone acquired it in 2007. As a part of Blackstone’s gargantuan product and supply purchasing program, these hotel companies contribute significantly to Blackstone being Staples’ single largest customer. Suppliers don’t balk when these hotel companies suggest changes in manufacturing specifications of equipment and services. The challenge, Anderson found, was in getting his arms around so much potential.

His first order of business as chief sustainability officer was to integrate sustainability into the mission of the overall operations team. Private equity real estate is focused on buying, fixing, and selling assets to realize returns. So, the improvements in Blackstone’s hospitality assets needed to be cost-effective. And the savings realized from a low- and no-cost, high ROI approach could then fund larger energy and water management capital expenditures. But Anderson’s biggest priority was to keep costs down. “The easiest way to make our investors happy and improve our own companies and reduce our environmental impact was to go after energy cost savings,” Anderson says. “For me, that kept it simple. Throughout my career, this has made sustainability more real.”

]]>http://lodgingmagazine.com/a-look-inside-blackstones-plan-to-own-sustainability/feed/0What AAHOA Means Nowhttp://lodgingmagazine.com/what-aahoa-means-now/
http://lodgingmagazine.com/what-aahoa-means-now/#respondMon, 17 Mar 2014 15:12:06 +0000http://lodgingmagazine.com/?p=10175At the time of its founding in 1989 and subsequent merger in 1994 with the then nine-year-old Indian American Hospitality Association, what AAHOA’s founders wanted most was relief and protection from discrimination that confronted them from all quarters. Banks shied from making loans, insurance companies charged 10 times the rate of premiums asked of non-Indians, and some hotel franchisors made conditions infuriatingly difficult for ambitious owners. Worst of all, many white hotel owners peppered highways ...

]]>At the time of its founding in 1989 and subsequent merger in 1994 with the then nine-year-old Indian American Hospitality Association, what AAHOA’s founders wanted most was relief and protection from discrimination that confronted them from all quarters. Banks shied from making loans, insurance companies charged 10 times the rate of premiums asked of non-Indians, and some hotel franchisors made conditions infuriatingly difficult for ambitious owners. Worst of all, many white hotel owners peppered highways with billboard ads touting their properties as “American Owned and Operated.” Indian American motel owners soon despaired of ever being able to achieve the American Dream that brought them here in the first place. Clout and recognition on Capitol Hill, a lucrative centralized purchasing program, and board-level positions with hotel chains weren’t even on their radar in the early days.

H.P. Rama, of JHM Hotels of Greenville, S.C., remembers the alarm generated by the discrimination and the threat it posed to the business he and his brothers founded. “I better change the way I am looked upon by ‘them’—whether that was fellow hoteliers, vendors, or lenders,” Rama told Lodging magazine early in AAHOA’s history. After becoming AAHOA’s first chairman in 1991, Rama would two years later become an officer of AH&LA and the association’s chairman in 1999.

At the same time, the early Indian American hotel owners knew what they didn’t know: how to increase their knowledge of hotel ownership and operations. Without more formal training and professional development, they figured they would never advance beyond mom-and-pop status.

What was needed, they determined, was an organization that would provide them a collective voice and a vehicle for providing education. From a meeting of 125 like-minded hotel owners in Charlotte, N.C., a core of 12 agreed to form the Asian American Hotel Owners Association.

When only 225 hoteliers showed up for the first convention in 1990, organizers H.P. Rama and Ravi Patel undertook a recruiting drive, literally, since they crisscrossed the country at their own expense in their cars to convince fellow Indian Americans to join their cause. When the association next met, in Nashville, Tenn., AAHOA was 600 members strong, and it was gaining the support of a few hotel companies.

Early supporters of AAHOA, Henry Silverman, CEO of Days Inn of America, and its marketing director, Michael Leven, recognized the uphill battle being waged by immigrant hoteliers. Leven, who would go on to be president of Days Inn, then Holiday Inn, and other lodging and gaming giants, helped with the organizing efforts and Silverman would write a check for $100,000 to AAHOA on behalf of Days Inn.

“It was a civil rights issue and for us a business issue,” says Silverman, who would go on to chair the Cendant Corporation. “Perhaps most important, it showed our franchisees how to unite around a common goal.”

First, the onerous billboards came down, thanks in part to the intervention of the American Automobile Association. The first steps of an education program to provide all-around ownership skills began, as did the framework for leveling the field with hotel franchisors. In 1998, during the term of AAHOA Chairman Mike Patel, of the Diplomat Hotel Corporation, the association debuted the 12 Points of Fair Franchising. A manifesto that was even printed on thousands of plastic yellow convention lapel badges, the 12 Points outlines tenants dealing with liquidated damages, development impact and encroachment, vendor exclusivity, dispute resolution, database ownership, and general franchising ethics.

The impact of the 12 Points was immediate and defining for nearly a decade. Whether it was causative or simply catalytic is still the subject of debate. But few would argue that the playing field soon leveled and relations between hotel owners and franchisors became more of a conversation at the conference table and less of pitched litigation in the legal marketplace. The transition to a more equitable relationship also conveniently dovetailed with a development even more pronounced and significant, the rise of the second- and third-generation hotel owners.

As the first generation of Indian American hotel owners entered their 50s and 60s in the early 2000s, existential questions abounded. How will their adult children approach life in America? Will they become so Americanized that they completely lose touch with their cultural heritage? Will they take their U.S. educations and comfortable standard of living and pursue other career fields? Or will they simply coast and enjoy the wealth created by the sacrifice and hard work of their parents?
“We are no longer accidental hoteliers,” says H.P. Rama in answer to these questions most asked of every wave of immigrants to America. “Today, Asian Americans are truly hoteliers, where the second generation is going to hotel schools and has a formal education in the hotel business.

“At AAHOA, the next generation is taking over—full of energy, creative, less political, and open to trying new ideas,” Rama says. “I have great hope for them.”

]]>http://lodgingmagazine.com/what-aahoa-means-now/feed/0Michael Leven: What I’ve Learned From a Lifetime in Lodginghttp://lodgingmagazine.com/michael-leven-what-ive-learned-from-a-lifetime-in-lodging/
http://lodgingmagazine.com/michael-leven-what-ive-learned-from-a-lifetime-in-lodging/#commentsMon, 10 Mar 2014 15:33:43 +0000http://lodgingmagazine.com/?p=9994When Michael Leven started his first job in 1961 in the sales department of the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, America was entering a period of profound transformation. John F. Kennedy was president, the civil rights movement was under way, the Cold War was intensifying, the Beatles staged their first performance, and Roger Maris belted his 61st home run for the Yankees. In the hotel world, transcontinental air travel and the Interstate Highway System ...

]]>When Michael Leven started his first job in 1961 in the sales department of the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, America was entering a period of profound transformation. John F. Kennedy was president, the civil rights movement was under way, the Cold War was intensifying, the Beatles staged their first performance, and Roger Maris belted his 61st home run for the Yankees. In the hotel world, transcontinental air travel and the Interstate Highway System made it possible for Americans to travel when and where they wanted. Motels, the forerunner of highly profitable select-service hotels, were just beginning to change the face of lodging.

For Leven, who grew up in a modest middle-class family, education was the true measure of success and the launching pad for establishing careers. He received a bachelor of arts degree in political science from Tufts University and earned a master of science degree in public relations and communications from Boston University though, at the time, he had no notion of how far he would go. But he knew hard work and opportunism would determine his trajectory.

From the Roosevelt, Leven would go on to the Dunphy Company and into the operations side of hotel management. Then came the role of president at Americana Hotels, Days Inn, Holiday Inn, and U.S. Franchise Systems (which he also founded), and a short stint as head of the George Aquarium (a hybrid form of retirement). Today, Leven is president and COO of Las Vegas Sands. Sands has expanded into the Asia market, where it is a dominant player in China, and in 2017, it plans to open similar operations in Spain.

Along the way, Leven, 76, has amassed nearly every award and recognition to be had in the hotel industry. In 2010, he created the Michael and Andrea Leven Family Foundation, which concentrates on three areas: free enterprise, the Jewish community, and oil independence. In January, AH&LA presented Leven with a lifetime achievement award at the annual Americas Lodging Investment Conference.

In this interview with Lodging, Leven shares his thoughts on half a century in the hotel business, his views on leadership, and his plans for the future.

Why did you choose this field, and why have you stayed?
I didn’t really choose it. It chose me. When I got out of graduate school with a degree in public relations and communications, I went looking for an advertising agency or a public relations firm in 1961 and for a variety of reasons couldn’t find one. Boston University [employment placement program] had a job for a sales promotion manager at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. I interviewed for a job that paid $495 a month and if you stayed 40 years, they had a pension of $40 a month.

The job lasted about two months, and then they threw me into the sales department. And then I stayed in the business one way or the other for all but maybe a year or two of the 53 years. Once you’re in it, it’s tough to get out. It’s a business I was really fortunate to be a part of. It’s not a very technical business—it’s much more of a liberal arts kind of business than an engineering business. Also, the industry grew dramatically during the number of years I’ve been in the business. So, the opportunities grew exponentially with the business.

I was thoroughly stereotyped as a sales person, and a good one. Then, I became a marketing person, and a good one. But I always wanted to be in operations. A couple of people along the way gave me a chance to be in operations. I became a resident manager of the Balmoral Beach Hotel [Bahamas], which wanted somebody with a sales mentality to be resident manager. Pat Ford was vice president of marketing for Dunphy Hotels and gave me a chance to be a regional vice president of operations and gave me five or six of its largest hotels to supervise its general managers. From there, it was back and forth between marketing jobs and operations jobs until my first presidency, of Americana Hotels in 1984. It took me 23 years to get there.

I developed an early sense of the customer and satisfying that customer. I always objected to some of the resistance from the financial side of the industry, which prevented the satisfaction of the customer. I always had good relationships there. Sometimes they were better relationships than I had with my bosses.

]]>http://lodgingmagazine.com/michael-leven-what-ive-learned-from-a-lifetime-in-lodging/feed/15Michael Doyle Shares Asset Management Strategyhttp://lodgingmagazine.com/michael-doyle-asset-management-strategy/
http://lodgingmagazine.com/michael-doyle-asset-management-strategy/#respondMon, 20 Jan 2014 16:37:17 +0000http://lodgingmagazine.com/?p=9158If Michael Doyle had scored just a few more goals or blocked a few more pucks while playing hockey at Cornell University, hotel asset management might be missing one of its more notable practitioners and industry proponents. A die-hard hockey player, Doyle figured on following his father’s footsteps into banking after a stint in the NHL. When Cornell recruited him to its hockey program, the pieces almost came together. Instead, two factors derailed his plans. ...

]]>If Michael Doyle had scored just a few more goals or blocked a few more pucks while playing hockey at Cornell University, hotel asset management might be missing one of its more notable practitioners and industry proponents. A die-hard hockey player, Doyle figured on following his father’s footsteps into banking after a stint in the NHL. When Cornell recruited him to its hockey program, the pieces almost came together. Instead, two factors derailed his plans. Doyle proved to be an excellent collegiate hockey player but just not NHL caliber. At the same time, came the pull from another direction in his family’s past: lodging.

Doyle’s paternal grandfather had operated a small hotel in Ontario in the early 1920s to the mid-1950s and the profession had always exerted a gentle tug on him. To this day he keeps a postcard on his desk of his father and grandfather standing in front of the property. In transferring to the hotel school at Cornell, Doyle was not looking any further up the road than a career in operations. Asset management was not yet on his radar. After all, one doesn’t simply sign up as an owner’s representative and adviser and just get on with the business. But after 22 years of operating branded and independent full-service hotels in Toronto, Houston, New York, and Boston, where he now lives and works, Doyle is now the EVP of Capital Hotel Management (CHM) and the outgoing president of the Hospitality Asset Managers Association.

And yet it wasn’t until after a five-year stint managing a collection of five-star golf resorts that Doyle was ready to reassess his career path. “I thought about going back to the hotel business as a general manager,” he recalls. “It was a comfort I had as well as a passion.” But through his interaction with CHM Co-Founder and President Chad Crandall, who was also the head of Cornell’s New England alumnae chapter, Doyle says he was presented with an opportunity to apply his skills toward learning the business through an owner’s perspective in the asset field. He joined CHM eight and a half years ago when the privately held company was four years old and still in growth mode. Today, the CHM portfolio includes 28 properties (14,463 rooms), most either urban landmark hotels, destination resorts, or convention center hotels. In 2013, CHM’s portfolio of managed assets totaled $5 billion in value, making it the largest third-party manager of assets in the country.

When Asset Managers Unite
As hotel ownership broadened beyond experienced owners in the ’80s and ’90s, when large portfolio investors with no lodging experience began to enter the field, third-party asset managers came into their own. By the time Doyle arrived at CHM, investors in the hotel industry included insurance companies, trade unions, pension funds, real estate investment trusts, and sovereign funds, which controlled billions of dollars in hotels and resorts. In 1992, the Hospitality Asset Managers Association launched to provide the field of third-party asset management with a collective voice as well as an educational vehicle to further the professionalism of its members. Doyle is the third executive from CHM to serve as president of HAMA and has just completed his term. He will remain on the board and return to his prior position in charge of international membership. “It’s a critical group, because it’s a tremendous opportunity for those of us in the profession to network and share the experiences we all commonly face, so we can better understand how to approach issues,” Doyle says.

Most issues that HAMA deals with are inherently embedded in the industry. Brands put forth standards and requirements that drive revenue to their bottom lines but not necessarily to the bottom lines of the asset owners. “That’s where the hotel companies are always striving to improve the value of their brand, and they are doing so at the cost of the current owners,” Doyle says. “So we need to ensure the level and amount of spending is appropriate for the property we are involved with, and that it will not only bring benefits to the brands but for ownership as well.”
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For example, HAMA is currently working with the International Society of Hospitality Consultants and STR to update the current levels of monies recommended to be set aside for the capital improvement of hotels. “History is proving that it’s costing ownership greater amounts of money than what many of these management agreements are recommending be set aside,” Doyle says. “It’s an area where we continue to be challenged as asset managers. We’re working to be an integral part of the planning and oversight process with the brands to ensure that the monies are being spent appropriately and in a manner that brings value to the business.”

Currently, HAMA has 200 members responsible for more than 1 million rooms worldwide. It has chapters in Japan and Singapore and in 2014 will launch a Middle East and Africa chapter. “We all know the brands have expanded aggressively internationally, and it’s no surprise we’re engaging with Japan and the Asia-Pacific region,” Doyle says. “They are facing many of the same issues, and so we’re expanding our work in sharing best practices and information. The template has been found to be very adaptable internationally.”

While Doyle may have long ago left behind his hockey aspirations, he never lost his love of athletics. Today he competes in Iron Man events, an all-season undertaking he trains for in any kind of weather. And, like asset management, he studies and measures his performance. In 2013, Doyle logged more than 4,100 miles. “For 99.8 percent of the population, just finishing it is an accomplishment,” Doyle says. “Then, there is that little small percentage—myself included—that is always trying to do it faster.”

Empathy. A good asset manager must have empathy for the property operations staff, brand managers, and his or her colleagues. Empathy comes with experience, which provides credibility among all parties. It enables effective assessment of a property or a brand well before the acquisition of a property.

Experience. Without a sufficient level of experience you end up in an adversarial relationship. You will not understand the dynamics of why something may or may not work.

Collaboration. Through collaboration you earn respect through ensuring that the teams you are working with know you are there to support them. At the end of the day, you are there to make them successful.

Know the owner. Some owners will only want to hold on to an asset for one economic cycle while others prefer to hold them through multiple cycles. Knowing which allows the asset manager to better determine an approach with a new acquisition.
Know the brand. Identify strategic initiatives to align the brand to those strategic initiatives.

Know the property. Spend time with the property team in researching and understanding how the property is performing and what issues and opportunities may exist. How does the property really function and operate and what’s the personality of each hotel?

Hold the property, brand, and owner accountable. Establish objectives that not only ensure brand performance and holding the property accountable but also ensure that ownership is going to do the things under its control to support those initiatives.